On our first day in London while waiting for our hotel room to be ready we decided to walk around a bit and see what we run into. We happened to walk towards Buckingham Palace and the nearby park. We decided to just walk up The Mall and torwards the Palace. We happened to notice the palace guards walking down The Mall and decided to go follow them for the changing of the guard.

Shift changing of the guards

After turning the corner the guards went towards another building which I assume to be some sort of guards quarters.

Old guards leaving and new guards replacing them

At this point a bunch of new guards came out and the old ones went in. The guards were escorted by two armed police on horseback along with another armed officer with a semi automatic gun.

The real guard is the guy holding the semi-automatic machine gun!

Once the change was completed the guards then march out and back towards Buckingham Palace. There is quite the crowd gathered to watch this event. Because I am somewhat tall (6’2) I was able to grab my photos by shooting over the crowd.

Guards leaving base

Guards marching out to Buckingham Palace

We decided to follow them back to Buckingham Palace but honestly they were walking quite a bit faster than us and they got fairly far in front of us until we lost track of them. We decided to just walk around and check out the palace. It was Sunday early afternoon and there were tons of tourists around.

My wife outside of Buckingham Palace

I believe you can tour a part of the palace but we weren’t interested in doing so. The Queen’s official residence is Buckingham palace but I wonder how much time she actually spends living there?

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham Palace gates

A guard at his post

It was good timing that we happened to be walking by for the changing of the guards.